Pencho Georgiev

(b Vratsa, 1 Feb 1900; d Sofia, 2 April 1940). Bulgarian stage designer, printmaker and painter. In 1925 he graduated in design from the National Academy of Art in Sofia and the following year made a successful d?but as a stage designer at the Sofia National Opera House with his set for Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades. From 1929 to 1934 he lived and worked in Paris, studying first at Paul Loran's atelier for applied art. Georgiev also became known as a printmaker and painter, exhibiting at the Salon d'Automne in 1929, and his art was favourably reviewed in Le Journal des arts, Matin and Temps by French critics. While in France he executed prints containing a strong social message (e.g. Unemployed, etching, 1930; Clochard, etching, 1931; Hotel, woodcut, 1932). His best-known paintings, among which are All Souls Day (1927) and Disaster (1931; both Sofia, N.A.G.), also contain strong social criticism. He also did a series of paintings entitled Bird Sellers (e.g. c. 1930-32; Sofia, N.A.G.). After returning to Bulgaria, Georgiev worked as a stage designer for the Ivan Vazov National Theatre in Sofia, creating more than 30 sets for plays, operas and ballets. His designs were daring and innovative, and he became an opponent of traditional sets, which featured symbolic themes or everyday genre. In 1936 he participated in the fourth Triennale in Milan, showing stage designs for Shakespeare's Hamlet and Offenbach's La Belle H?l?ne. He also executed decorative and stylized oil paintings of Bulgarian peasants and prints depicting Bulgarian village life.

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